Ventura – Today’s tight rental market, wherein the monthly cost of apartment occupancy frequently exceeds individual financial resources, can create unique and potentially “questionable” living arrangements among friends, relatives, and even strangers.
When the Ventura Police Department was contacted by an 18-year old female on May 29th with allegations of rape, imprisonment, and sodomy at the hands of her roommates, she described events far afield from any contemplated by the classic TV sitcom “Three’s Company,” in which a male enjoyed the comedic company of two females. According to Ventura Police Cpl. D. Ruggiero, the female victim made her report after vacating the apartment she had been sharing with Brandon Vanwie, 24, and Madeline Carden, 20, and described “how she was raped while she was intoxicated and another occasion where she was bound and sodomized.” She further alleged that she had been “treated as their child”, with no access to her money or personal documents.
Madeline Carden
Ventura Police Major Crimes Detectives conducted an investigation over the ensuing four months, and ultimately served a search warrant on the apartment still occupied by Vanwie and Carden on September 3rd, the product of which supported the victim’s allegations. Additional evidence collected at the scene indicated the suspects’ ongoing exchange of child pornography, as well as their active stalking and surveillance of a local female teen while she was walking to school.
Upon questioning, “both Vanwie and Carden told detectives that they regularly fantasized about sex acts with underage girls,” Ruggiero reported, adding that detectives found additional evidence of their plans to “lure underage girls to their home for the purpose of sexual acts.”
On October 7th, both Vanwie and Carden were taken into custody and booked into Ventura County Jail on charges of conspiracy, rape, sodomy, child annoyance, and possession of child pornography, with their bail set at $200,000 each.
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
Read more:
CBSLA: Ventura couple regularly got former roommate drunk, raped her
VCSTAR: Police say Ventura couple got roommate drunk, raped her
